


Engines, Pilots, and Broken Things

by Mary Reed (Mary_Reed)



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Chewie feels, Force Awakens spoilers, Gen, Sorry for the sadness, The night is dark and full of spoilers, don't even read the tags if you haven't seen the movie, seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 14:54:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5630569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mary_Reed/pseuds/Mary%20Reed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An exploration of what Chewbacca was feeling when the THING at the end of the Force Awakens happened (I'm trying to avoid spoilers). A look at Kylo Ren's childhood, and the things they all lost when he turned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Engines, Pilots, and Broken Things

            A little boy with Han’s brightest smile and Leia’s crazy mane of hair beamed up at his massive, furry uncle. He was in clean, baby blue pajamas, his dark hair cropped short but still somehow managing to be unkempt.

            “Toss me, Chewie!” shouted the boy, laughter in his eyes. The tall wookie lifted the child while bellowing loudly, his hands never quite leaving the fabric of the boy’s shirt. Little Ben Solo reached for the ceiling with chubby outstretched fingers, grazing it with a shriek of laughter. He never once looked down, falling safely back into Chewbacca’s arms with delight on his already handsome face.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

            In the cold center of a First Order ship, Chewbacca watched Kylo Ren send a lightsaber through the stomach of his father. The Sith apprentice had removed his mask, exposing a face that was so familiar to the wookie, and so foreign, too. He was gaunt, angry and afraid, long and thin fingers wrapped so tightly around the hilt of his weapon that his knuckles shone white and anxious. There were tears in his eyes, Chewbacca could see that from where he stood. Those sweet eyes of his, deep brown like his mother’s, they were filled with tears, but they did not sparkle. Not the way they used to, when he reached for ceilings from the safe arms of his uncle, when he smiled like the world was his and his family stood behind him as support, not before him as an obstacle.

            Han Solo died at the hands of his son, fell into the bowels of a ship not unlike the one where the first Ben died, and his best friend in the entire galaxy watched from above. Chewbacca screamed when Han died, anger and grief and disappointment howled at a boy who used to fall asleep in his lap. Rey and Finn watched from afar, coated in a layer of snow and newfound confidence. They cried, too. Han took them in when they were alone, adopted an abandoned girl and a lonely boy without a second thought. They had loved him, for as briefly as they’d known him, but their pain was different. Han was a friend, a father of sorts, but mostly he was a future. The potential for family, for love, for living. They would mourn the idea of him more than the man himself, and he would never fault them for that. Han knew the value of people who were more than they were, learned it when he watched the love of his life command men twice her age and double her size, saw the fear in their eyes, the respect.

            But Chewbacca had lost a friend. He lost a future and a past, a lifetime of glances and nods that meant so much more than they should’ve, the simple but indisputable truth that Han Solo and Chewbacca would always save each other. There would be time for guilt later on, (guilt for not staying with Han, for not stepping in, for not doing _something_ ) but in this moment Chewbacca was struck with the full force of losing his best friend. Of losing the man he would’ve turned to in that moment for safety, for validation, for comfort. Instead, he was met with two terrified children holding weapons they did not know how to use in shaking hands. They needed him, and he would step up as he always did. But he would never stop looking over his shoulder for Han, trailing behind because he was busy flirting or messing with his vest so it looked just right. He would never stop expecting Han to plop down in the pilot’s seat of the Falcon and call Chewbacca furball with a laugh in his gruff voice.

            Chewbacca watched his best friend die at the hands of a boy he helped raise, and all he could think of was the night he babysat little Ben, tossing the boy into the air as he giggled with gleeful abandon. He thought about how Ben had never stopped looking up at the ceiling, had never checked to see who was going to catch him, if Chewbacca was waiting with safe and well-intentioned arms. There was trust in the eyes of a child who believed he would always be caught, that no one would ever drop him.

            He wished he had spoken up sooner. Wished he had sat Ben down on nights when Han and Leia were off fighting or fucking and made him understand that this life came with a price. That it had to be earned, in everything you did and everything you didn’t, and that it would not be easy. But that it would be worth it, too. That he knew what it was to be without this, to be aimless, and that he did not want that for Ben. That if Ben fell without looking to see who was waiting, he would fall into the hands of men who looked at Anakin Skywalker and saw _asset_ , not family. Who saw power, saw a boy who would do anything for the people he loved and decided to exploit it rather than cherish it.

 _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

            Chewbacca sat in his seat in the Falcon, and a girl with Han’s intuition plopped down beside him, a little excited, a little scared. She moved cautiously in this new world, never taking up too much space, always looking over her shoulder. Always looking down. The hole where Han had been ached in Chewie’s furry chest, but he looked at Rey and saw a girl who had never stopped checking for danger in the corners of rooms and in the hands of men who seemed to mean well. He remembered little Ben, with his reckless trust and his pride, matched it with this bent, unbroken thing sitting where Han once sat, and felt just a little brightness creep back into his bucket of bolts.

 


End file.
